« O » is a short film that brings abstract images of very concrete subjects to ask if the ‘reasons’ behind racism are grounded only in the colour of one’s skin. And if that is the case, we invite the viewer to look at colours in a scientific context, where removed from the human body and presented purely as an image.

Abstract form is a style in art that allows the viewer to navigate the space, physical and metaphysical, and take their own conclusions.

The O shape reminds the audience that this, as any film, as any image, is a perspective. A point of view. It is the director’s perspective. It is the audience’s perspective in that moment in time. And more than that, we are still looking at colour on someone’s skin. The film can’t run away from that, since that is where the film came to form.

How much can we distort an image known to so many and associated with a specific subject? If we take the colour out of one’s body and put into the screen with its body, can it become clearer that names and connotations are imposed rather than inherent?

By removing the colour and keeping the shades, I hope that the race element of the film becomes more obvious. We are talking about race, but in a context different from the one we usually approach it from. We are looking at shade first since that seems to be the first criteria to discriminate someone. If colour is the ‘problem’, then let’s look at it too. Understand if the problem is indeed the colour, or if it is the eye that sees it.

The visual principles of the film lay on the statement “There is no racism in Portugal.” and how this affects my mind.

If a side insists on seeing society through a peephole, then we can look at bodies through our peephole and show what we see. Shapes and tones. There’s not much more to it when looked at in this explicit way.

It seems that the only way to face the disaster and pain caused to a race by another is to look at it objectively, through another lens. A new lens for old minds. And looking at what caused this problem to one side, it can then become evident that what caused this horror was not the colour, but the eye that looks at it. To make a disturbed mind understand what it is that one is trying to express we better change the speech to their limited understanding.

Colour is all they see, then colour is all we’ll show.